I’m No Longer Scared of Becoming a 40-Year-Old Woman
Bring it, middle age
Society will tell you that getting older is not a natural, beautiful thing.
It will tell you it’s freaking terrifying.
We all know this. We’ve all heard stories about the rise of preventative botox and Sephora kids. And we certainly know it’s much harder to age as a woman.
No silver foxes, just old crones.
I turn 40 in six months and for the last three or four years, I’ve been so scared of it I’ve thought about it daily.
I’ve noticed when I’m more tired than I think I should be. I’m aware it takes me longer to recover from a run. My knees beg for attention — they didn’t used to do that.
Then there’s the big kahuna — babies. I want one and I likely can’t have one.
Despite being near to infertile for several years (I don’t know how many for sure, but at least five), I still consider 40 as some sort of fertility cut-off. That’s what society tells me. It decrees 40 is when you should give up trying and adopt the societal-approved mantle of lonely, sad and childless.
But in recent months I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve started to understand that 40 doesn’t have to be the death sentence for a woman society says it is.
